Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have received a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study a vaccine for nicotine addiction, which has shown promise in clinical trials. The research, published recently by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, attempts to learn why some smokers are more addicted to nicotine than others.  

“We want to understand the difference between the person who becomes addicted and the person who can be a casual smoker,” said Pradeep Garg, the lead researcher for the Wake Forest Baptist effort, which also involves Duke University Medical Center. Garg is a professor of radiology and director of the center’s Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center.

The goal of the research is to offer tobacco users a vaccination to help ease, or potentially cure, their nicotine addiction. “The bottom line is that if we can effectively block nicotine entry in the brain, we will have effective therapy,” Garg said.

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